The tradition of intensive fieldwork by a single anthropologist in one area has been challenged by new emphasis on studying historical patterns, wider regions, and global networks. Some anthropologists have started their careers from the new vantage point, amidst a chorus of claims for innovative methodologies. Others have lived through these changes of perspective and are able to reflect on them, while re-evaluating the place of fieldwork within the broader aims of general anthropology. This book explores these transformations of world view and approach as they have been experienced by anthropological colleagues, a number of whom began their work very much in the earlier tradition. They cover experiences of field research in Africa, Papua New Guinea, South America, Central and South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Indonesia, Japan and China. Constant through the chapters is a distinctively qualitative empirical approach, once associated with the village but now being developed in relation to large-scale or dispersed communities.

The line between what is regarded by people as "traditional" and "modern" is constantly being altered by new configurations of power. These essays examine the ways in which such changes are both communicated and created through cultural performances in diverse ethnographic settings. Examples are drawn from a wide range of forms and expressions: divinatory sequences, spirit possession rites, state ceremonials, village feasts, pilgrimages, language-use and craft specialisms. It was Abner Cohen, to whom this volume is dedicated, who first suggested that a dialectical relationship existed between power and symbolism. This concept, as developed in his seminal work, has since become a growing area of study as reflected in this important collection. By questioning some of the directions, the authors make a major interdisciplinary contribution to the study of cultural performance as a key factor in power relationships. The principal stage is Africa, but comparative ethnographic data are drawn from Ireland, Italy, South Asia, and the United Kingdom.

This study analyses the way in which tribal ties are maintained in the development of a tribally mixed, middle class community in Kampala, Uganda. Political independence in the early nineteen sixties in much of Africa created expectations of increased development, education and living standards. There was hope that ethnic tensions arising from false colonial boundaries might be transcended by newly emerging socio-economic status-groups. However, the new national boundaries suddenly made aliens of peoples who had migrated and settled in towns distant from their home countries. The interplay of nationality, ethnicity and socio-economic status or class was given a new theatre. Hope was dramatically tempered by nationalist and ethnic conflicts which cut across ethnically mixed, small status groups of neighbours and friends. In Kampala, Uganda, this rapidly unfolding drama resulted in the expulsion of two Kenyan ethnic groups and polarised peoples from northern and southern Uganda. The essentialisation of ethnic and national identity imposed by colonialism was thus taken on in this new situation by the people themselves, with the result that they became 'cultural' starting-points of social and political judgement. Originally published in 1969.

Explore the city at the heart of the ancient Roman Empire with Iliona, a Greek girl captured by pirates and sold into slavery. The year is AD102 and Iliona, an educated Greek girl, has been orphaned and sold as a slave in Rome. Apart from her beloved diary, she hasn't a friend in the world... But the family she works for are not unkind, and as Iliona begins to make friends and look around her, she discovers that the teeming city at the heart of the empire is a fascinating place. Through her eyes, watch the Roman army return in triumph from war against the Dacians, visit Nero's baths, witness gladiators fighting in the famous amphitheatre, attend the senate and a sumptuous banquet, escape a house fire, discover how Roman women dress their hair ... and celebrate with her on the day that she is granted her freedom for her bravery!

The relationships between humans and their natural surroundings is paradoxical. They impose knowledge and action on the world around them, yet at the same time subscribe to myths and beliefs which portray them and their natural suroundings as inseparable, with neither more powerful than the other. This paradox is explored in the essays in Bush Base: Forest Farm, which uses an anthropological perpective to direct new light on development and environmental studies. The contributors, all anthropologists who have had practical experience of development programmes, present case studies drawn form Africa and Asia, and reflect upon their theoretical implications. They reject the traditional sharp dichotomies of human settelemnt and external natural environment - farm of camp on the one hand, and forest or bush on the other - and suggest instead that the people, their indigenous knowledge and their forests or bush exist within each other. They argue that although the concept of sustainable development takes greater cognisance of the environment there is still a need to place at their centre and appreciation of people's cosmologies and cultural understandings.

Puffin Clothbound Classics are stunningly beautiful hardback editions of the most famous stories in the world, now including a beautiful edition of Watership Down, an epic tale that has been beloved for generations. Fiver, a young rabbit, is very worried. He senses something terrible is about to happen to the warren. His brother Hazel knows that his sixth sense is never wrong. So, there is nothing else for it. They must leave immediately. And so begins a long and perilous journey of a small band of rabbits in search of a safe home. Fiver's vision finally leads them to Watership Down, but here they face their most difficult challenge of all . . .

This book explores verbal and non-verbal communication from a social anthropological viewpoint, drawing on ethnographic data from fieldwork in East Africa. It gives an overview of developments since the 1960s in the anthropology of language use and how these have influenced the author's thinking. The volume makes the argument that language and other forms of communication involve semiotic transactions between interlocuters; that such communicative exchanges do more than convey information; and that they give identity to the recipients of such transactions who reciprocate by defining speakers. The density and situational totality of such semiotic exchange can moreover be regarded as a kind of materiality, both in terms of their impact on social interaction and in how interlocuters interact bodily as well as verbally among themselves.

This book explores verbal and non-verbal communication from a social anthropological viewpoint, drawing on ethnographic data from fieldwork in East Africa. It gives an overview of developments since the 1960s in the anthropology of language use and how these have influenced the author's thinking. The volume makes the argument that language and other forms of communication involve semiotic transactions between interlocuters; that such communicative exchanges do more than convey information; and that they give identity to the recipients of such transactions who reciprocate by defining speakers. The density and situational totality of such semiotic exchange can moreover be regarded as a kind of materiality, both in terms of their impact on social interaction and in how interlocuters interact bodily as well as verbally among themselves.

Originally published in 1987, this book shows that there is still considerable continuity in the practices and ideas of marriage in Afican against a background of social and economic change. This book discusses the diverse marriage forms in Africa and explores the different systems some of which can be understood in terms of Levi-Strauss's distinciton between complex and semi-complex structures, while others throw up questions of filiation, child custoidanship and rights secured through bridewealth transactions.

Originally published in 1975, the studies in this volume examine the range of factors which mediate the development of social processes in both town and country: as well as migration there is the ebb and flow of beliefs, ideologies and educational and occupational opportunities. It considers the fundamental economic and political bases of migrations in the form of colonialism or multi-national controls of various kinds, international commodity markets of supply and demand, and the distinct development policies adopted by independent governments. The editor's introduction discusses old and new models of migration; the origins of rural inequalities in development; the degree of continuity of language and belief systems between town and country and the persistence of rural links in urban settlements.

This open access book is the first published guide about how to analyse data produced by the EQ-5D, one of the most widely used Patient Reported Outcomes questionnaires world wide. The authors provide practical, clear and comprehensive guidance in five concise chapters. Following an overview of the EQ-5D and its analysis, we describe how the questionnaire data - the EQ-5D profile and EQ VAS - can be analysed in different ways to generate important insights into peoples' health. We then show how the value sets which accompany the EQ-5D can be applied to summarise patients' data. The final chapter deals with advanced topics, including the use of Minimally Important Differences, case-mix adjustment, mapping, and more. This book is essential for those new to analyzing EQ-5D data and will be also be valuable for those with more experience. The methods can be applied to any EQ-5D instrument (for example, the three- and five-level and Youth versions) and many of the methods described will be equally relevant to other Patient Reported Outcomes instruments.

In this innovative study, David Parkin shows how indigenous African rites and beliefs may be reworked to accommodate a variety of economic systems, new spatial and ecological relations among communities, and the locally variable influences of Islam and Christianity. The Giriama people of Kenya include pastoralists living in the hinterland; farmers, who work land closer to the coast; and migrants, who earn money as laborers or fisherman on the coast itself. Wherever they live, they revere an ancient and formerly fortified capital, located in the pastoralist hinterland, which few of them ever see or visit. It is the site of occasional large-scale ceremonies and becomes especially important at times of national crisis. It then acts as a moral core of Giriama society, and a symbolic defense against total domination and assimilation.

"This book...presents a powerful case for anthropology that provides a full and whole account of the contemporary world, as well as some dilemmas...Taken together, the different approaches and case studies presented in this volume amount to an important and refreshing perspective...showing how contemporary social anthropology, with its] 'interdisciplinary turn', offers explanations that can help us understand the interplay of culture, society, biology, genetics, and ecology." . JRAI

..".provides some fine examples of ways that anthropology can capture and hold valuable ground in the borderlands between scientific and humanistic inquiry..an excellent volume... remarkable... for its systematic use of examples such as ethnomedicine, landscape studies, and cognitive anthropology to demonstrate the immensely rich ways in which a cultural orientation can meet various kinds of science." . Reviews in Anthropology

Given the broad reach of anthropology as the science of humankind, there are times when the subject fragments into specialisms and times when there is rapprochement. Rather than just seeing them as reactions to each other, it is perhaps better to say that both tendencies co-exist and that it is very much a matter of perspective as to which is dominant at any moment. The perspective adopted by the contributors to this volume is that some anthropologists have, over the last decade or so, been paying considerable attention to developments in the study of social and biological evolution and of material culture, and that this has brought social, material cultural and biological anthropologists closer to each other and closer to allied disciplines such as archaeology and psychology.

A more eclectic anthropology once characteristic of an earlier age is thus re-emerging. The new holism does not result from the merging of sharply distinguished disciplines but from among anthropologists themselves who see social organization as fundamentally a problem of human ecology, and, from that, of material and mental creativity, human biology, and the co-evolution of society and culture. It is part of a wider interest beyond anthropology in the origins and rationale of human activities, claims and beliefs, and draws on inferential or speculative reasoning as well as 'hard' evidence. The book argues that, while usefully borrowing from other subjects, all such reasoning must be grounded in prolonged, intensive and linguistically-informed fieldwork and comparison.

David Parkin is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford, All Souls College, having held the chair from 1996-2008. He was previously from 1964 to 1996 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. From February 2010 to October 2011 he was Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Goettingen, Germany. He works in Eastern Africa among Muslims and non-Muslims on religion, healing, language, human bodily intelligence, and material culture. His books include Sacred Void (CUP 1991), Islamic prayer across the Indian Ocean (with Stephen Headley) (Curzon Press, 2000), The politics of cultural performance (with Lionel Caplan and Humphrey Fisher) (Berghahn Books, 1996) and Bush base, forest farm (with E. Croll) (Routledge 1992).

Stanley Ulijaszek is Professor of Human Ecology at the University of Oxford, and was previously at the University of Cambridge. Current research interests include human evolutionary nutrition, and biocultural determinants of nutritional health in transitional economies of Eastern Europe and the Pacific. He has conducted research in Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Poland, the UK, Australia, Bangladesh, Nepal and India. His books include Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology; Nutritional Anthropology; Prospects and Perspectives (with Simon Strickland)."

Recognising the fundamental role both of shipping communities and the technologies crafted and shared by them, this book explores the types of ships, methods of navigation and modes of water-borne trade in the Indian Ocean region and the way they affected the development of distinctive settlements against a changing but strong sense of regional consciousness and identity.

Given the broad reach of anthropology as the science of humankind, there are times when the subject fragments into specialisms and times when there is rapprochement. Rather than just seeing them as reactions to each other, it is perhaps better to say that both tendencies co-exist and that it is very much a matter of perspective as to which is dominant at any moment. The perspective adopted by the contributors to this volume is that some anthropologists have, over the last decade or so, been paying considerable attention to developments in the study of social and biological evolution and of material culture, and that this has brought social, material cultural and biological anthropologists closer to each other and closer to allied disciplines such as archaeology and psychology. A more eclectic anthropology once characteristic of an earlier age is thus re-emerging. The new holism does not result from the merging of sharply distinguished disciplines but from among anthropologists themselves who see social organization as fundamentally a problem of human ecology, and, from that, of material and mental creativity, human biology, and the co-evolution of society and culture. It is part of a wider interest beyond anthropology in the origins and rationale of human activities, claims and beliefs, and draws on inferential or speculative reasoning as well as 'hard' evidence. The book argues that, while usefully borrowing from other subjects, all such reasoning must be grounded in prolonged, intensive and linguistically-informed fieldwork and comparison.

This study analyses the way in which tribal ties are maintained in the development of a tribally mixed, middle class community in Kampala, Uganda. Political independence in the early nineteen sixties in much of Africa created expectations of increased development, education and living standards. There was hope that ethnic tensions arising from false colonial boundaries might be transcended by newly emerging socio-economic status-groups. However, the new national boundaries suddenly made aliens of peoples who had migrated and settled in towns distant from their home countries. The interplay of nationality, ethnicity and socio-economic status or class was given a new theatre. Hope was dramatically tempered by nationalist and ethnic conflicts which cut across ethnically mixed, small status groups of neighbours and friends. In Kampala, Uganda, this rapidly unfolding drama resulted in the expulsion of two Kenyan ethnic groups and polarised peoples from northern and southern Uganda. The essentialisation of ethnic and national identity imposed by colonialism was thus taken on in this new situation by the people themselves, with the result that they became 'cultural' starting-points of social and political judgement. Originally published in 1969.

The tradition of intensive fieldwork by a single anthropologist in one area has been challenged by new emphasis on studying historical patterns, wider regions, and global networks. Some anthropologists have started their careers from the new vantage point, amidst a chorus of claims for innovative methodologies. Others have lived through these changes of perspective and are able to reflect on them, while re-evaluating the place of fieldwork within the broader aims of general anthropology. This book explores these transformations of world view and approach as they have been experienced by anthropological colleagues, a number of whom began their work very much in the earlier tradition. They cover experiences of field research in Africa, Papua New Guinea, South America, Central and South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Indonesia, Japan and China. Constant through the chapters is a distinctively qualitative empirical approach, once associated with the village but now being developed in relation to large-scale or dispersed communities.

Paul Dresch has been working both on Yemeni history and the ethnography of the Arab Gulf. He taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before being appointed Lecturer in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. Wendy James has taught at the Universities of Khartoum, Aarhus, and Bergen, and has research experience in the Sudan and Ethiopia. She has published on the history and anthropology of North East Africa and on general topics in religion and politics. She is currently Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. David Parkin has carried out field research in East Africa since 1962, much of it while at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. Current research interests include Islam, medical anthropology, socio-material prosthesis, and cross-cultural rhetorics. He is the Director of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford.

The line between what is regarded by people as "traditional" and "modern" is constantly being altered by new configurations of power. These essays examine the ways in which such changes are both communicated and created through cultural performances in diverse ethnographic settings. Examples are drawn from a wide range of forms and expressions: divinatory sequences, spirit possession rites, state ceremonials, village feasts, pilgrimages, language-use and craft specialisms. It was Abner Cohen, to whom this volume is dedicated, who first suggested that a dialectical relationship existed between power and symbolism. This concept, as developed in his seminal work, has since become a growing area of study as reflected in this important collection. By questioning some of the directions, the authors make a major interdisciplinary contribution to the study of cultural performance as a key factor in power relationships. The principal stage is Africa, but comparative ethnographic data are drawn from Ireland, Italy, South Asia, and the United Kingdom.

Recognising the fundamental role both of shipping communities and the technologies crafted and shared by them, this book explores the types of ships, methods of navigation and modes of water-borne trade in the Indian Ocean region and the way they affected the development of distinctive settlements against a changing but strong sense of regional consciousness and identity.

In its attempt to squash the influence of animism and pantheism or polytheism and to promote the idea of the One and Only Absolute God, Islam has come up against a tendency within itself to incorporate certain local religious traditions and practices. This book shares that combination of universality and local particularity, exploring this paradox and the contradictory tendencies contained in it.

Originally published in 1987, this book shows that there is still considerable continuity in the practices and ideas of marriage in Afican against a background of social and economic change. This book discusses the diverse marriage forms in Africa and explores the different systems some of which can be understood in terms of Levi-Strauss's distinciton between complex and semi-complex structures, while others throw up questions of filiation, child custoidanship and rights secured through bridewealth transactions.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415066565

An epic story that has been beloved for generations, Watership Down has become one of the most famous animal stories ever written. Fiver, a young rabbit, is very worried. He senses something terrible is about to happen to the warren. His brother Hazel knows that his sixth sense is never wrong. So, there is nothing else for it. They must leave immediately. And so begins a long and perilous journey of a small band of rabbits in search of a safe home. Fiver's vision finally leads them to Watership Down, but here they face their most difficult challenge of all . . . __________ Richard Adams originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters and they insisted he publish it as a book. It quickly became a huge success with both children and adults, and won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal in 1972.

In its attempt to squash the influence of animism and pantheism or polytheism and to promote the idea of the One and Only Absolute God, Islam has come up against a tendency within itself to incorporate certain local religious traditions and practices. This book shares that combination of universality and local particularity, exploring this paradox and the contradictory tendencies contained in it.

In this innovative study, David Parkin shows how indigenous African rites and beliefs may be reworked to accommodate a variety of economic systems, new spatial and ecological relations between communities, and the locally variable influences of Islam and Christianity. The Giriama people of Kenya include pastoralists living in the hinterland; farmers, who work land closer to the coast; and migrants, who earn money as labourers or fishermen on the coast itself. Wherever they live, they revere an ancient and formerly fortified capital, located in the pastoralist hinterland, which few of them ever see or visit. Their different perspectives sometimes conflict, but together provide a shifting idea of the sacred place. As the site of occasional large-scale ceremonies, moreover, the settlement becomes especially important at times of national crisis. It then acts as a moral core of Giriama society, and a symbolic defence against total domination and assimilation.